Kent on Sunday 29th June: Exclusion and Home Education (?) figures for Kent and Medway, the latter shocking

In 2009-10, Kent schools permanently excluded 126 pupils, rising to 210 two years later, but falling every year since then, to a low of 58 in 2015-16. Over the same period Medway school exclusions rose from just three pupils excluded to an appalling and record figure of 81 in 2015-16, up 35% on 2014-15. This is the highest exclusion rate in the South East of England, with the secondary school exclusion rate being over twice as large as any other Local Authority. Nationally, Medway is joint 7th worst in the country for permanent exclusions. Further, the average number of days of fixed term exclusion per Medway pupil was 7.3 days, the highest figure in the country.

In both Local Authorities, the number of families ‘choosing’ Elective Home Education is astonishingly high, with Medway seeing an incredible rise in families taking their children out of school, soaring from 38 to 377 in two years. For some reason, Medway Council is desperately trying to hide the identities of the schools where the worst problems exist.

This article explores the reasons for the stark contrast in outcomes in the two Local Authorities. Government policy is to reduce the number of children excluded from schools, with permanent exclusion (expulsion) used only as a last resort.

Back in 2011, I launched a campaign in conjunction with Kent on Sunday to see the number of Kent permanent exclusions reduced from its place at the top of the national figures, including 41 SEN statemented pupils permanently excluded, 20% of the total, 19 of whom were from primary schools. Paul Carter, Leader of KCC, pitched in with a particular interest in SEN statemented children. Under his leadership KCC set a target of reducing permanent exclusions to less than 50, with a proportional reduction in exclusions of statemented children, by developing strategies to work with all schools.

Since then the county has introduced its Inclusion and Attendance Advisory service which monitors school exclusions and provides challenge, advice and support to schools to reduce exclusions, coming close to meeting both targets, with 14 statemented pupils excluded in 2015-16. Just six schools permanently excluded five or more pupils in one of the two years up to July 2016: Ebbsfleet Academy (8); Folkestone Academy (7); High Weald Academy, Knole Academy, New Line Learning Academy, and Salmestone Primary Academy all with five.

However, it is fair to say that not all academies are in tune with the county strategy, and some use other strategies to ‘lose’ unwanted pupils. Earlier this year, the National Schools Chief Inspector identified that some schools were putting pressure on parents to ‘choose’ Elective Home Education (EHE) to get their children off their books before GCSEs. Although government does not collect figures for EHE, in 2013-14 Kent had by far the highest national figure for children going down this route, at 1112, nearly twice the next largest figure of 593 in Essex. For 2015-16, the Kent figure was still extremely high at 987 new cases.

EHE is popular amongst a number of educated families, who are confident they can offer a better education than school, or the particular school they have been offered. This does not explain the loss of 10 or more pupils from 13 Kent secondary schools in the year leading up to GCSE registration, many serving socially deprived areas. This list is headed up by Orchards Academy that saw 16 pupils leave in the year before GCSEs, followed by Ebbsfleet and Oasis Isle of Sheppey Academies, two of what I call the three Kent ‘Tough Love’ schools, all extremely unpopular with families. I have seen a considerable number of reports about Isle of Sheppey, describing the pressures children were put under to leave (which is unlawful), although the Island situation means that for most there is no alternative school. There is now a thriving Island private tuition industry springing up to cater for some of these children as an alternative to school! Surely this cannot be considered as an appropriate state of affairs, and an investigation is long overdue.

Because Kent follows the rules on Freedom of Information requests, I am able to identify the movement of pupils caused by exclusion or threat of exclusion. However, the situation in Medway is very different, as the Authority is refusing to provide details, although there has been no problem in previous years. However, the Medway SEND and Inclusion Strategy document for 2016 -2020 records that: ‘In the year 2013-14, 70 children and young people were permanently excluded from a Medway school. This exclusion rate, 0.16% of the state-funded school age population, is the highest percentage bar one other authority. …The average number of days of fixed term exclusion per Medway pupil was 7.37 days: the highest in England’. Unfortunately, although this is described as a strategy document it contains NO RECOMMENDATIONS WHATEVER as to how to improve matters and the figures have only got worse.

What we do know is the data in the introduction above, making Medway one of the worst Local Authorities in the country for exclusions, with more pupils permanently excluded than in Kent, which has six times as many children. This is a problem that has been building for some years as demonstrated by the 2013-14 figures. Medway had 377 children transferring to EHE in 2015-16, again proportionally far higher than Kent, a truly astonishing tenfold increase over the two years since 2013-14 when there were just 38. As to which schools are losing the most children by one or both of the above strategies, whilst I can make guesses, Medway Council refuses to provide the answers – what is it trying to hide?

Of course, some may argue that these young people get what they deserve and should be flung out on the streets or subject to punitive regimes. Many will have troubled backgrounds or medical conditions (the proportion of young people with autism who are excluded is far too high), but other children in the class have a right to be able to learn without interruption, and the main cause for exclusion in both Kent and Medway (over a third in Medway schools), is persistent disruptive behaviour. Local Authorities become responsible for educating these pupils, to try and avoid them become a long-term cost to society but every one who drops out of school with no genuine provision made is at risk of becoming a far greater cost to society through their later behaviour. What this data shows is a very different approach to handling pupils at risk of exclusion in Kent and Medway. KCC has worked out a range of strategies including early intervention to reduce that risk, working with maintained schools and academies, although some individual schools are still happy simply to pass the problem onto someone else. Medway’s strategy document, having identified it has one of the worst problems in the country then offers no way forward, so it is no surprise it has deteriorated further, although in response to these figures the Council says it will continue to hold schools to account (although this has clearly had no effect so far!).

I have publicly identified Kent schools with high exclusion rates in the past, and been gratified to see numbers fall, possibly as a consequence. Surely Medway schools failing their communities should be equally placed in the spotlight!

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Medway Council has once again failed its children, this time the most vulnerable, as confirmed by a scathing Ofsted Report on its ‘services’ to children with Special Education Needs and Disabilities, published this week. The report concludes‘Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector (HMCI) has determined that a Written Statement of Action is required because of significant areas of weakness in the local area’s practice’. I think that is putting it politely. There are strengths identified; it just happens that all these appear to be down to the health service and not education.

Concerns centre about chaotic management of the ‘Service’, resulting in failure to take necessary action. This can be seen from the following quotes: ’Medway’s education and service leaders do not share one vision and strategy for SEN and/or disabilities…No arrangements are in place to ensure effective joint oversight and clear lines of accountability…Little progress has been made in addressing several of the pressing priorities for improvement identified as far back as 2012… Leaders’ understanding of what has and has not improved in the meantime is limited. I could have chosen many others.

'The collaborative work between professionals and children and their families to plan services and meet individual needs, known as co-production, is weak at both a strategic and individual level' This criticism is underpinned by the heavy criticism of the implementation of Education and Health Care Plans for children with the greatest needs, which are at the heart of Departmental work, and ‘A considerable number of parents shared concerns with inspectors that the needs of their children are not being identified and met sufficiently well’.

There is of course reference to Medway's record exclusion rates: ‘Although improving, rates of permanent and fixed-term exclusion are still notably higher for pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities in Medway than for similar pupils nationally, as it is for all pupils. Lack of specialist provision has brought serious consequences for pupils with severe SEN or disabilities travelling out of Medway daily on long and very expensive journeys.

The new Interim Chief Executive of SchoolsCompany Trust has apologised in a letter to parents of pupils at the Goodwin Academy for ‘previous financial failings, which are unacceptable’.

Sadly, this has come as little surprise to me, as I foresaw issues as early as 2014, when I noted in an article that SchoolsCompany had contributed to the startling decline of the predecessor school Castle Community College (CCC), in Deal from Ofsted Outstanding to Special Measures in three short years. As a reward SchoolsCompany took over as sponsor of the school as recently as July 2016. The school was awkwardly renamed SchoolsCompany Goodwin Academy, presumably to advertise the name of the Sponsors as a priority, above creating a new school image.

The Academy limped on for a period, after 2014, with the 'support' of SchoolsCompany, unpopular with a third of its places unfilled, and underperforming, although there have recent strong signs of improvement under new school leadership. Unusually, eight of the eleven Company Trustees were paid a salary by the Trust, hardly an inducement for encouraging scrutiny. After the school received a Financial Notice to Improvefrom the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) in October, seven of the Trustees resigned including the Executive Principal of the Company This left the school with just four Trustees including the CEO and founder of the company, Elias Achilleos, although he now appears to have been replaced by the new Interim Chief Executive. The Trust has demonstrably failed some of the Financial Notice's requirements for improvement.

The school will clearly have a future in its new £25 million premises opened four months ago on October 6th, just three weeks before Trustees resigned en masse, but it looks increasingly likely it will not be with Schools Company. Indeed a more than doubling of first preferences to 173 for 2018 admission, shows confidence in the school and its leadership, achieved without obvious input from the few remaining Trust members.

As schools come under tighter financial pressures (never mind official news, but ask your local school how it is managing), pupil numbers become ever more critical as they generate the largest part of the income of each school. This article looks at a number of issues in Kent and Medway highlighted by the October 2017 schools census.

Which seven Kent secondary schools have more than 40% of their Year 7 places empty for September 2017?

Which four of these were more than half empty in Year 7 for 2016, with two over 40% for all of the past three years?

Which secondary school lost over a third of its cohort Years 7-11?

Which two secondary schools, one in Kent one in Medway, lost over a fifth of their cohort Years 9-11,

a pattern associated with off-rolling.

Which six grammar schools lost over 20% of their pupils at the end of Year Eleven?

What happened after last year’s Year 12 expulsion scandal at Invicta Grammar and elsewhere?

Which six primary schools (two in Medway) failed to fill half their places for each of the last two years?

This is the second year of the new GCSE assessments for measuring schools performance, Progress 8 and Attainment 8, which replace the long established 5 A*-C GCSE league table including English and maths. The key measure is Progress 8 (full table here) which looks at progress from the end of primary school to the end of Year 11, and is rightly given priority in measuring performance. Under this measure, Kent is slightly below the National Average of -0.03, at -0.11.

Attainment 8 (full table here) simply measures what it says, with Kent exactly equalling the National score of 46.3 ranked 60th out of all Local Authorities, although there is a variety of other statistics provided to choose from to suit your case.

Headlines: the Grammar School progress table is no longer the sole preserve of West Kent and super-selectives with four girls' schools invading the top eight. Highworth, Invicta, Folkestone Girls' and Maidstone Girls have joined Tonbridge, TWGGS, and Dartford Girls', leaving Dartford as the only boys school.

Top non-selective school is Bennett Memorial, one of six church schools in the top ten, the top three ever present also including St Simon Stock and St Gregory's. For the second consecutive year there are remarkable performances by Meopham School and Orchards Academy, neither of which have the built in advantages of other top performers. Six schools are below the government floor level with well-below average progress, down from eight last year, and so facing government intervention.

Five of the top six grammar schools on attainment are unsurprisingly super-selective in West and North West Kent - along with Tunbridge Wells Girls'. These are the same schools as in 2016, balanced by five boys and one mixed grammar at the foot. The Non-selective table is led by three church schools, Bennett Memorial leading the way above two grammar schools. Four non-selective schools are at the foot of both Progress and Attainment Tables.

Further information below. including the performance of individual schools......

I make no apologies for this being the fourth consecutive news item about Medway on this site but, as my previous articles suggest, the education system in the Authority has become unstable, with self-interest by academy chains driving decisions.

The controversial proposal for Holcombe Grammar School (previously Chatham Grammar School for Boys) to become co-educational has just been turned down for the second time by the DFE. This was no doubt for sound reasons, including those I have identified previously, most recently here. When the school first proposed the change, it made clear in its paperwork that it did not care about any damage a change would cause to Chatham Grammar School for Girls by increasing the number of girls' school places where there was already a surplus. It would also alter the balance of grammar school provision in Medway to just one heavily oversubscribed boys' grammar and three girls' schools, along with two mixed grammar schools.

This is one of the worst of a number recent proposals for change by Medway secondary schools, the reality being that neither Chatham grammar school was attracting enough local children to be viable in the long term at that time.

BUT: Congratulations to the Thinking Schools Academy Trust, which runs Holcombe Grammar School and features in most of my recent Medway articles, by being identified in a government analysis as the highest performing Multi-Academy Trust nationally in KS4 (GCSE) Progress 8 Assessment Tables

There is a unique situation rapidly developing in Medway, in spite of challenges by the Council in previous years with nearly all secondary academies appearing to rush like Gaderine swine this year to give admission priority to schools in their Academy Trusts and limit options for families. In Kent, where the Local Authority also keeps a close eye on such matters, there is no evidence of anything similar after Invicta Grammar School withdrew their proposal.

In Medway, amongst the issues, it is proposed that pupils at over a quarter of all non-catholic primary and junior schools (excluding infant schools) and 38% of all primary and junior academies will be given priority for admission to specific grammar schools (some of these schemes are already in place). Pupils at half of all primary and junior academies will be given priority for admission to one or more linked schools, which poses an additional challenge for families choosing primary schools. Already fourteen of Medway's 17 secondary schools either have admission policies that give preference to children from named schools or are proposing to introduce them.

Medway Council's policy of encouraging all its schools to become academies has obviously played its part in this undesirable outcome, and is bound to see numbers of the tied primary schools increase as more change status. Currently, 42 of Medway's 65 primary and junior schools are academies.

I look below at the situation as it affects each of Medway's secondary schools and linked primary academies.………